China's Unworthy invitation

Arnold Beichman
Hoover InstitutionJuly 10, 2001

In 1946, George Kennan sent from Moscow an 8,000-word report in
which he warned about the Soviet Union in these portentous words: "We
have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that
with the U.S. there can be no modus vivendi."

That message became the foundation of America's containment policy
against Soviet imperialism. (It should be noted in confirmation of the
Kennan prognosis, that in 1947 Greece and Turkey had to be given U.S.
protection via the Truman Doctrine against a communist takeover. In
1948, Czechoslovakia was overrun by Stalin and in June 1950, North
Korea invaded South Korea).

Today the question before us is this: Does Communist China believe
that "with the U.S. there can be no modus vivendi"?

In his book "The China Threat," Washington Times reporter
Bill Gertz presents one answer for believers in the theory of "constructive
engagement," a theory that envisions a U.S.-China partnership in
Asia. It is the December 1999 statement of Gen. Chi Haotian, defense
minister and vice-chairman of the Communist Party's Central Military
Commission:

"Seen from the changes in the world situation and the hegemonic
strategy of the United States to create monopolarity . . . war is
inevitable. We cannot avoid it. The issue is that the Chinese armed
forces must control the initiative in this war military bloc headed by
U.S. hegemonists. . . . We must be prepared to fight for one year, two
years, three years or even longer." So far as I know there has
been no repudiation of the statement by Gen. Chi, who for his role in
the 1989 slaughter of defenseless Chinese students is also known as
the Butcher of Tiananmen Square.

Now, of course, those who believe in "constructive engagement"
with China will say Gen. Chi was just sounding off, nothing more than
jingoistic rhetoric. Really? Supposing a high U.S. official, say, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs were to orate about the inevitability of
war with Communist China and President Bush let it stand, would we
consider such a statement as mere rhetoric?

The International Olympic Committee meets in Moscow July 13 to
decide on the site of the 2008 games Beijing, Istanbul, Paris or
Toronto, with Beijing supposedly the heavy favorite. The committee
faces almost universal agreement, most recently the vote by the
European Parliament, that Beijing is unfit to host the 2008 Olympics.
Even if the IOC ignores Communist China's infinite violations of
simple human decency, how can the committee vote for Beijing in face
of Gen. Chi's prediction, which remembering his nom de guerre, the
Butcher of Tiananmen Square, is not to be taken lightly?

That the IOC's decision meeting is to be held in Moscow is
especially fitting. Russia, back in 1956, repudiated Josef Stalin and
removed his embalmed body from Lenin's Tomb. Stalin is an unperson in
Russia. But the Chinese communist regime has never repudiated Mao
Tse-tung, the greatest mass murderer in all human history. His
embalmed body still lies in state in Tiananmen Square for one good
reason: Mao's corpse legitimates the Party dictatorship which is still
imprisoning dissidents, democrats, trade unionists, Chinese-American
citizens, executing political prisoners, exterminating Tibetans, using
torture and "suicide" as a weapon of repression and engaging
in the greatest exploitation of workers and peasants since the
Industrial Revolution.

Now we hear from well-intentioned people that Communist China's
modernization is corroding elements of the totalitarian structure and
in time would lead to the system's demise. If modernization would so
endanger the regime, why then do Jiang Zemin and his associates
encourage such a perilous direction especially when they see what
happened to the U.S.S.R. when Mikhail Gorbachev began, so to speak, to
modernize? Because they don't regard modernization or WTO membership
or the Olympics as a threat to their survival; because they still
profess Marxism-Leninism even though its precepts are no longer
operational. And it is Marxism-Leninism which gives them their
security and, above all, their legitimacy.

As Leszek Kolakowski, Nobel laureate, put it, "No modern
society can dispense with a principle of legitimacy. And in a
totalitarian society, this legitimacy can only be ideological. Total
power and total ideology embrace each other." Holding the
Olympics in Communist China would only strengthen that legitimacy.

The IOC should vote against Communist China as the Olympic hosts in
2008. And if an intimidated IOC ignores the democratic will as
expressed by, among others, the U.S. House of Representatives and the
European Parliament, then an international campaign should be
organized to discourage participation.